It'll All Work Out
by Mulderette
Summary: Carter stops by for a talk with Jing-Mei after the birth of her baby.


TITLE: It'll All Work Out  
AUTHOR: Lynne Facella  
CATEGORY: Carter & Chen Friendship  
SPOILERS: Episodes through "Surrender."  
SUMMARY: Carter stops by for a talk with Jing-Mei after the birth of her baby.  
DISCLAIMER: All ER characters are the property of Warner Brothers, NBC, etc., etc.  
EMAIL: Mulderette@aol.com or Lynne1919@aol.com   
WEB SITE ADDRESS: http://envy.nu/carterette/  
NOTES: Jen, thanks so much for your editing help :)  
  
  
Jing-Mei Chen sat curled up on her couch, wrapped in a blue and white comforter as she gazed at the photograph of her newborn son, Michael, the child it was possible she would never see again. She had been out of the hospital for almost two weeks now, but she still found it impossible to do much of anything except sit in her apartment, day after day. She had lost track of the countless times her mother had called, leaving message after message, pleading for her to return her calls, but she just couldn't. She didn't want to talk to her. She really didn't want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to be alone.   
  
She started at the sound of the buzzer to her apartment, and then rolled her eyes. Her mother was coming here now? She shook her head in frustration. Why couldn't she understand that she wanted to be left alone? She needed to be left alone. The buzzer kept ringing persistently and finally Jing-Mei went over to the intercom and pressed the button. "Mummy, you might as well turn right around and go home because I don't want to see you right now. Why can't you understand that?"   
  
"Deb?"  
  
She closed her eyes for a moment as she heard the familiar voice over the intercom. John. He was the only one who ever called her Deb anymore, and the only one she would have let get away with it. For a few moments there was silence. She wasn't sure what to say to him. Maybe if she didn't say anything he would just go away.  
  
"Deb? It's me, John. Are you okay?"  
  
Still silent, she looked at her reflection in the mirror on the wall as she inwardly pondered his question. Was she okay? Her hair was dull and unkempt. Her eyes looked tired with dark circles underneath. She hardly ever slept. She rested, but sleep did not come easily to her and when she did finally manage to drop off, the dreams would come. Michael's incessant crying...his new parents mistreating him in varying horrifying ways...Michael coming to her as an adult, demanding to know why she had given him away...  
  
"Deb, are you okay?" His voice was obviously concerned now.   
  
"Yes," she whispered, then realizing he couldn't possibly have heard her, she managed to raise her voice. "Yes, I'm all right, John."  
  
"Can I come up?"  
  
She hesitated. She didn't really want to see him, but he had been so good to her, really the only one who had been there for her through any of this. "I'm really tired, John..."  
  
"Please, Deb? I won't stay long."  
  
She sighed, not really having the energy to try to argue with him. "All right, John...you can come up."  
  
She buzzed the door open for him and patiently waited for the soft knock that came a few minutes later. Slowly she walked over to the door and opened it to find John standing in the hallway, looking impeccable as always, carrying a pizza box. She stood silently contemplating him for a few moments and then moved aside allowing him to enter. "Come on in."  
  
"Thanks." He walked into the apartment, glancing around as he entered. Although in many ways they knew each other so well, they almost never saw each other outside of the hospital. This was the first time he had ever been to her apartment. She had only been to his grandparents' place a couple of times when he had been recuperating after the attack by Paul Sobriki.   
  
"This is a nice place you've got here," he said, still holding the pizza box. "Uh, where can I put this?"   
  
"There's fine." Jing-Mei absently waved towards the coffee table as she sat back down on the couch. "Why don't you have a seat? You didn't have to do that, John."  
  
"But I was starved." He grinned boyishly at her as he too sat down on the other end of the couch. "I wasn't really sure how you like your pizza. Half is just cheese. The other half has the works. You can just pick off what you don't like. I like it either way."  
  
"I'm really not very hungry..."  
  
"Oh come on, Deb," he cajoled, giving her a pleading look. "You're not going to make me eat alone are you? I had a rough day at the hospital. I was bitten by an irate four-year-old, see?" He held up his neatly bandaged finger as evidence.   
  
Jing-Mei smiled in spite of herself. He could be such a baby sometimes. "You must have done something to deserve it."  
  
"I didn't, not a thing." He shook his head earnestly. "All I wanted to do was look in his ears and the kid just went ballistic."  
  
"I'm sure," she said, still smiling at him before her smile began to fade and they sat in silence just looking at each other. Finally, just when the prolonged silence was beginning to feel exceedingly awkward, John spoke again.   
  
"So...how are you doing?" He observed her closely as he asked the question. She didn't look well. She was pale and tired-appearing and just looked very sad. He wondered if she had talked to anyone at all about what she had gone through or if she had just been holed up in here since she had been released from the hospital. Inwardly he chastised himself that he hadn't come sooner. The ER had been busy though and today was the first day in recent memory that he had actually been able to leave at the end of his shift. He had gone straight to an AA meeting, had picked up a pizza and decided to come here.   
  
"I'm fine, John." She spoke firmly as she looked him in the eye.   
  
His eyes wandered to the coffee table and fell on the picture of Michael. She saw his look and immediately grabbed the picture, clutching it tightly in her hand. "I said I was fine."  
  
"Come on, Deb...talk to me," he implored softly.   
  
"There's not anything to talk about, John. This isn't something you just get over in a day. But I will get over it. I'm doing better and soon I'll be able to go back to work and that will help me get my mind off things."  
  
"Have you talked to anyone about this? Have you even gone outside? It isn't healthy for you to just be here alone dwelling on this day after day, Deb. It..."  
  
"Stop it!" Her eyes flashed as she looked at him. "Is this why you came here, John? To play shrink or something? Because I don't need it and frankly, I'm not in the mood to listen to it. I did what I did and it's over with now. I just have to accept it and move on."  
  
"You say that like you did some horrible thing."   
  
She cast him a scornful look. "Oh excuse me. I forgot what a noble gesture it is to have a baby and just give him away like he was a bagful of old clothes."  
  
"That isn't what you did, Deb," he said quietly, shaking his head. "What you did...it was incredibly brave."  
  
"Brave?" She almost choked on the word as she said it, dangerously on the verge of tears. "What I did was not brave. I was a coward. I didn't want to raise a baby on my own. I didn't want it to interfere with my career and I didn't want to go against my parents, to see their disappointed looks whenever they looked at me or my child. I was a coward, John. I certainly wasn't brave."  
  
"You were brave," he insisted as he took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. "You didn't have to have that baby. You could have taken the easy way out, but you didn't. You gave Michael life and you gave him a good home with parents who love him and will give him a good life. It was a wonderful thing you did. It's not something you should ever be ashamed of."  
  
"Shouldn't I be?" she whispered, resting her head back against the couch and looking up at the ceiling. "He was so beautiful, John, wasn't he?" She turned towards him again and their eyes locked. "Wasn't he just the most beautiful baby?"  
  
"Yes, yes he was beautiful, Deb," he said softly.  
  
"How...how could I have given him up?" She asked tremulously as the tears finally began to slide down her cheeks. "What kind of a person am I?"  
  
"Come here." He moved in closer to her and put his arms around her as she buried her head against his chest and began to sob. "Just let it out," he said softly as he gently rubbed her back and held her as she cried, trying to comfort her.  
  
After a short while, her sobs began to lessen and she finally drew back from John's arms. "I...I'm sorry." She took a couple of tissues from the box on the coffee table and dabbed at her eyes. "I didn't mean to do that."  
  
"Please don't apologize," he said, looking back at her sincerely. "That's what friends are for. I'm here for you, Deb. I hope you know that."  
  
She looked down at her hands, now clasped together in her lap over the photograph of Michael. "I do know that, John...and I appreciate it, but..." She looked up at him again, her eyes full of obvious pain. "How can you even stand to look at me after what I did? First of all I was so careless the night that Michael was conceived and then..."  
  
"How can I look at you?" John looked at her incredulously. "Come on, Deb, look at who you're talking to here. Remember? John Carter, County drug addict. The guy who stole drugs from the ER."  
  
"Don't talk like that, John," she said quietly. "What happened to you...it wasn't your fault. It never would have happened if you hadn't been attacked. It was just circumstances."  
  
"Yeah, circumstances," he said with a grimace. "I told myself that for a long time too...but in the end, it didn't make any difference at all. It didn't change what I had become. There were a lot of other ways I could have handled what happened to me, but the truth is I took the easy out. I did whatever I could do to escape the pain. I didn't care what I did or who I hurt in the process."  
  
"But you're fine now. You've moved past it. You got through your probationary period and everything's okay." She hesitated as she studied his expression carefully. "It is okay, John...Isn't it?"  
  
He paused momentarily, unsure of how the topic had changed from Deb giving up her baby to him and his drug addition. "No...it's not okay, Deb." He sighed deeply before continuing. "I screwed up. A patient came in and he had some Vicodin in his pocket and...and I just grabbed them and swallowed them, just on impulse really. I didn't even mean to...I...I just did it." He didn't tell her this had happened when he had stayed with her during Michael's birth after working all night in the ER. It wasn't important and he knew she'd blame herself. He didn't want that. She had enough on her plate right now.   
  
Her eyes widened as a horrified look came over her face. "But John...they'll fire you. What...what if they find out?"  
  
"I threw them up," he said in a monotone, staring down at the floor. "They never got into my system. I told Weaver...she put me back on probation. I'm starting all over again, back at day one with the meetings, drug restrictions at the hospital...the whole nine yards. It's my last chance though. One more slip and I'm gone."  
  
"So you see, Deb," he said, looking up at her again. "I'm the screw-up, not you. I know this must be an incredibly hard thing for you to go through, but you can't beat yourself up over it. You didn't do anything wrong. You brought a new life into this world and you made sure he was going to a good home. That's all that's important...that's what you need to focus on."  
  
Jing-Mei gnawed on her lip lightly as she considered his words. What he said made some sense, but even so... "John would you...would you have ever done what I did?" Her voice was barely a whisper as she asked the question.   
  
He paused for a moment, unsure of what to say. Truthfully he didn't think he could. Hell not that he thought he would be a particularly great father right now. Over the past year he had proved that he could barely take care of himself, but even so, he would like the chance to try.   
  
"I don't know, Deb." His voice faltered. "I don't think anyone would really know what they would do, until they were in the situation. Everyone's life is different, you know? I mean, you probably never would have started abusing drugs. What I do know though is that deciding to have Michael, and then giving him up...it's probably the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life, and I know it doesn't seem so right now, but in the long run, it's going to make you stronger."  
  
She nodded. Somewhere inside of her she knew that he would never give up his child. But he was also right that their lives were very different. He too had done things that she couldn't even comprehend doing. It seemed they both had their crosses to bear. She sighed softly and decided to try to get her mind off of this, at least for a little while. A faint smile came over her lips as she moved away from John and opened the pizza box. "I bet this is pretty cold by now."   
  
"I can heat it up if you'd like," he said, relieved that her mood seemed to have changed for the better, even a little bit.   
  
"That's okay." She shook her head and reached for one of the loaded slices. "I like cold pizza. But feel free to heat some for yourself if you'd like. Do you want a drink or something?"  
  
"I'll get it." He quickly rose from the couch. "You want something?" he asked as he started for the kitchen.   
  
"A Pepsi?" She grinned at him as she took a mouthful of the pizza.   
  
"And maybe some plates...and napkins," he added as he looked at her with a fond smile. "You've got some sauce on your chin."  
  
"Oh." She gave him a somewhat embarrassed look as she wiped her chin with her fingers.   
  
He smiled and was about to head off again when her voice stopped him. "John?"   
  
"Yes?"   
  
"Thank you..." she said softly as her eyes moved upward and locked with his. "And I don't just mean for the pizza..."  
  
"You're welcome, Deb." Their gaze lingered for a few more moments and then he turned away and headed into her kitchen. Somehow he suddenly felt more positive about things...that in the end, everything would work out well for both of them.   
  
  



End file.
